The invention in general relates to the operation of a cellular network (mobile telephony network) and in particular a method and an arrangement for using certain information acquired upon registration of a mobile communication device (communication equipment) at a base station (switching center) in particular for traffic forecasting. In this connection, the acquired data comprise at least a numerical identification associated with the person of the subscriber as well as time and location of registration at the base station (switching center).
In the field of the present invention, it is known to use certain information acquired upon registration of a mobile communication device at a switching center for traffic forecasting, in particular within the context of the so-called “floating car data” method. In this method, based on the acquired data, it is determined whether, and if so, at which speed and in which direction, a mobile communication device and thus also the subscriber of a cellular network operator (cellular provider) or the vehicle of the subscriber is moving in order to early on have feedback with regard to the future traffic situation, in particular with regard to the risk of a traffic jam, and to optionally deliver to the subscriber appropriate alerts and route recommendations.
Since providing such traffic prognoses is highly complex, it is usually performed by special companies that obtain from the cellular provider or an intermediate facility, a so-called aggregator, certain data. In order to correctly evaluate and interpret movements and brief stops, for example, at a rest area, it is important to be able to interrelate the location and time information, i.e., at which time a communication device used in such a prognosis method is located where, to further location and time information for the same communication device, at least for a certain period of time. It must therefore be ensured that information of the kind “X is at Y1 o'clock at location Z1” can be interrelated with further information of the kind “X is at Y2 o'clock at the location Z2”. On the other hand, for reasons of privacy, it must be ensured that the information where X has been at certain times is not easily accessible and in particular is not available to the company that handles the task of traffic prognosis.
A solution for the afore described problem resulting from afore described contradictory requirements is not trivial, in particular because the employed standards for communication networks set narrows limits for the cellular providers in particular with regard to the use and the configuration of certain person-associated identifications, for example, the international mobile subscriber identity IMSI, the standards are necessary partially for the purpose of fulfilling certain legal requirements, partially for the basic purpose of enabling the interoperability of the various elements of a communication network.
Currently, only as a partial solution of the above discussed problem, the following approach is being used. Before transmitting the data to be utilized, the identification associated with the person of the subscriber is replaced with a different identification by means of a correlation table that is known to the cellular provider or an aggregator and by this different identification the subscriber is supposedly anonymous to the user but at the same time the user is still able to correlate the location and time information to further location and time information of the same subscriber. In such an approach the subscriber data are however not actually made anonymous but each subscriber is only assigned a pseudonym wherein by means of the correlation table it is easily and quickly possible to determine the actual subscriber.